by E. G. Foley
That explains a lot, Dani thought. Spoiled brats.
“Unless you’re going to be a baby and tell on us?” the shorter boy asked.
“I don’t recommend it,” the taller one said with a glower.
“I’m not a tattletale,” Dani retorted.
“Good, because you wouldn’t like what that would get you.”
Dani scoffed. “Pfft, save your breath. You think I’m scared of your threats?”
“You should be. You don’t even have any magical powers!”
Dani saw that Gladwin had disappeared with the Queen’s flag out the window. “True…but I do have—this!”
All of a sudden, Dani pulled her fists out of her pockets and threw the Sticking Powder in their faces. The skunkies gasped in surprise, which only made them inhale more of the glistening dust.
It worked in seconds.
Their fluffy, skunk tails popped out. The girl turned in circles, trying to figure out how it had appeared, while the brothers wrestled with themselves in confusion—one with a skunk head atop a human body; the other, boy from the waist up, skunk from the waist down.
“What have you done to us?” they cried.
Dani backed away, laughing, jeering, and pointing. “Ha, ha, got you! Look at the freaks!”
But her triumph was short-lived.
There was a reason, after all, that people were advised not to buy things from the fairy market.
She felt a queer tingling sensation running all over her skin, and then two sharp pangs on the crown of her head and another fierce jolt at the base of her spine. Dani shrieked as a fiery burst of pain seared her face around her nose and she realized that now the skunkies were laughing at her, pointing and jeering.
“What?” she cried in alarm.
“You’d better go look in a mirror, cotton-tail,” the half-skunk brother said.
“Before somebunny sees you like that,” said the girl.
“Like what? W-what are you talking about?” In dread, Dani reached up to touch the twin spots on the top of her head where, just a moment ago, it had felt like somebody had driven two screwdrivers through her skull. She gasped as she felt long, velvety-soft protrusions coming up out of her head.
Ears?!
Then, at the bottom of her field of vision, she noticed something stuck to her face. She touched her cheek and was horrified to realize she had whiskers. She reached around and found a cottony puffball of some sort on the back of her dress.
She ran in a circle trying to see it, refusing to believe what she already, deep down, knew. “A tail. I have a tail!”
She stopped and stared at the half-skunk freaks. “What’s happened to me?” she choked out.
The girl smirked, folding her arms across her chest. “Let’s just say you’re somebunny now.”
Dani shrieked and leaped back from the door, covering a surprisingly wide distance. “The witch said it was temporary! Gladwin, is Sticking Powder temporary?”
She ran off, screaming for the fairy, racing so fast down the hallway that her strides turned into long, bounding hops.
# # #
The tumultuous swirl of three hundred people’s emotions in the ballroom had quickly overwhelmed and exhausted Isabelle.
Add a tightly laced corset that she wasn’t used to wearing, and the evening soon became a recipe for utter misery. She kept waiting for Dani to arrive, knowing her friend would cheer her up, but still, nothing. What the dash was taking them so long?
She glanced again at the long-case clock, hoping Dani hadn’t got lost in the dark on her way to visit Red. One more thing to worry about, as if Jake and Nixie being stuck inside the Enchanted Gallery wasn’t awful enough.
How she wished she weren’t trapped in here, wasting time, but Mother had insisted.
Thankfully, the magical orchestra started up the next waltz, and her glamorous parents and their friends went off to dance. Relieved to the bottom of her soul for a few minutes free of the agony of making small talk, she watched the dancers whirling across the gleaming parquet floor for a moment, but when she could no longer stand the debutantes nearby snickering at her for her bumbling in front of the Queen, she withdrew to the terrace outside.
She went to the stone railing, casting a disgruntled perusal over the moonlit gardens. I am so ready to go home. She missed her unicorns.
“Well, if it isn’t little miss nosy,” said a low, silken voice from the shadows.
Isabelle whirled around to find the vampire sauntering toward her. “Stay away from me.”
“Oh, but I have business with you, young lady. What were you about, prying into my thoughts like that today?”
“No, I—that’s not true—I can’t read people’s thoughts.” She backed away as he approached, wilting under his piercing stare. “I can only sense emotions,” she admitted, praying he did not murder her. “I’m an empath, you see. Not a telepath, like you. I-I can only read the heart, not the head. I didn’t learn anything, I promise!”
“No, I should think not, considering the heart in me stopped beating long ago.” He smiled in cool amusement when Isabelle winced slightly at the notion of a dead, silent heart sitting in his chest like a lump of rotten meat.
She tried to hide her distaste. “What are you doing at Merlin Hall? I thought vampires weren’t allowed at the Gathering.”
“Maybe looking for my next bride, hmm? What do you say, girl? You look healthy enough. Look at this golden hair! You shine in the darkness.”
“Get away from me!” She threw up her arm to block his hand reaching to touch a lock of her hair.
He gave her a droll look and lowered his arm to his side, and Isabelle realized he was only toying with her. “Ah, come, just because I drink blood, that doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“Actually, it does!” she said, shaken.
“Miss Bradford!” a harsh voice clipped out. “Is he bothering you?”
Isabelle drew in her breath as Maddox appeared at the top of the stone steps leading up from the gardens. Prince Janos turned and arched an eyebrow as Maddox marched toward them, his stare fixed on the vampire. Isabelle’s heart pounded.
“What have we here? Oh, Stone’s latest protégé. Noble Guardian! Another cannon-fodder boy.”
“Step away from Miss Bradford,” he said. “I’m only going to warn you once.”
“Indeed?” Prince Janos laughed. “Hold on! You look familiar to me. Do I know you?”
Isabelle slid to the side, escaping the focus of the vampire’s attention as Maddox stepped between them. She stared, wide-eyed, at the prince from behind the broad-shouldered Guardian lad.
“Of course,” Janos murmured, studying him. “You’re Ravyn’s pup. You have her eyes. And how is your lovely mother these days? Still cursing like a sailor and drinking like a fish, I hope?” A nostalgic smile skimmed the vampire’s face. “Such times! Tell the lethal lady that I miss her. That girl could hit an enemy in the throat with a dagger at twenty paces. What a woman.”
Isabelle could feel Maddox seething. “Unless you wish to test the skills that I inherited from her, I suggest you go away now, traitor.”
“So that’s how it is, eh? Very well. I shall not trouble you, for her sake. But be warned, lad. I was like you once. Young Guardian, head full of mush. Until I realized there’s no future in it.” The vampire flashed a smile that showed the tips of his fangs but did not reach his eyes. “On that day, I wised up, put away my little-boy dreams of heroics, and became—”
“A monster,” Maddox said.
The vampire feigned hurt. “A realist, I was going to say.”
Maddox held his stare. “If you go near Miss Bradford again, I will personally put a stake through your heart.”
The humor in Prince Janos’s eyes vanished. “You children bore me.” He turned away, took a few angry strides toward the railing, changed into a bat, and flew off through the trees.
Her heart thumping, Isabelle was still holding her breath when Maddox turned to her.
>
“Are you all right, Miss Bradford?” he asked in a taut voice.
“I think so.” She stared at him. “Thank you.”
“Of course. Can I get you anything? A glass of punch? Er…smelling salts?”
Her lips twitched a little. “No—thank you. I am well.”
He nodded like they were discussing military maneuvers. “You should go inside now.”
She glanced toward the French doors to the ballroom and then shook her head with a sigh. “Honestly? I can’t bear to. Not yet. There’s just…too many people.”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
He hesitated. “I don’t much care for crowds myself.”
She gazed at him in wonder. He turned away, clearing his throat.
“Well, if you mean to stay out here, then I should keep watch. In case he comes back.”
She hid her glee at the prospect of spending a few minutes with him. “If it’s not too much trouble, I would…really appreciate that.”
“No trouble. It’s my duty,” he replied, already glancing around, on the lookout for any sign of the vampire returning.
She tried not to stare at him. “It’s lucky for me you came along,” she ventured after a moment.
“Not luck. Instinct, Miss Bradford,” he replied.
But then he seemed to realize what he had just admitted to. Everybody knew that a Guardian could only arrive in time to protect people with whom he felt some sort of bond.
“Oh. I see.” She managed a decorous nod and feigned ignorance on this point to spare his feelings. Because, frankly, Maddox looked rather panicked that, for all intents and purposes, he had just accidentally admitted that he liked her.
Isabelle somehow held back a shout of joy and smiled at him politely. Maddox looked away, scanning the night, the trees, the roof, the garden, looking anywhere but at her. But it was no use. Even though she could not read him, the fact that he was standing here gave his feelings away.
# # #
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Jake and Nixie ran through the final painting, screaming their heads off. Nixie was too scared to pay the slightest attention to her sprained ankle. Speed was their only hope to escape the monsters everywhere.
Nightmare creatures peopled the underworld landscape of the insane Hieronymus Bosch, some so strange that Jake almost wanted to stop and stare at them in morbid fascination.
Bosch had clearly given great thought to the denizens of Hades: devils and gargoyles, chimeras and grotesques of all kinds.
Part-shrimp, part-toad, part-cactus.
Torso-men with no proper heads, but weird, angry faces set into their bare chests. They carried spears and seemed to serve as the wardens of this underworld prison.
A huge, nautilus-shell creature flailed its long green tentacles about, grabbing prisoners every which way and pulling them into its round, saw-toothed mouth.
A wolf-like beast with horns and blue-black fur sat on a throne in the center of the scene, howling with bone-chilling laughter at the antics of the goblins.
The very air was fetid, thick with smoke and useless pleas for mercy. Continuous screams issued from the severed heads displayed on pikes along the path down which Jake and Nixie fled. Above, winged furies circled, their threshing sickles at the ready. Rat-like bird-lizards with beaks and claws sharp enough to tear flesh pecked out people’s spleens while giant machines shaped like internal organs served as bizarre torture devices.
Their exit waited for them in the form of a window-like picture frame, set into the reddish stone wall of the underground world.
Just get from point A to point B, Jake kept telling himself, holding onto sanity for all he was worth.
It seemed to take forever to run the high stretch of path that hugged the cavern wall above the writhing scene, but by some miracle, they finally reached the rickety ladder that rose up to the picture-frame.
“Go! You first!” Jake stood guard at the bottom of the ladder while Nixie climbed. He used his telekinesis to zap away a pair of torso-men who approached to investigate.
At the top, Nixie dove through the picture frame. Jake scrambled up the rungs and followed.
Seconds later, he came flying out of the painting to sprawl on the gallery floor. When he realized he was back safe at Merlin Hall, he could’ve kissed the ground.
Panting, Jake looked over at Nixie. “You all right?”
“Um…” To his surprise, she had landed on top of Archie.
Jake realized his gentlemanly cousin must have tried, helpfully, to catch her when she came flying out. Instead, fueled by her terrorized momentum, Nixie had bowled him over and they both had landed on the floor. Judging by his beaming smile, Archie didn’t seem to mind a bit.
“Sorry about that,” Nixie mumbled, climbing to her feet.
“N-no worries,” Archie answered as he did the same. Pushing his spectacles back up onto his nose, he came and gave Jake a hand. “You two all right?”
“That was terrifying,” he whispered.
Nixie nodded, still looking shaken.
“Jake!” a familiar voice suddenly called.
He looked down the long gallery. “Dani!”
She came running toward them. “You’re safe!”
“Just barely,” he mumbled.
To his surprise, Dani threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug. Startled, Jake hugged her back rather gingerly.
“Great news!” she said at once, stepping back again. “Gladwin and I returned the Queen’s flag for you! Your reputation is saved!”
“Really?”
“Of course, it wasn’t easy, but never mind that,” she said hastily. “The important thing is, your name’s cleared and the evildoers are being punished as we speak.”
Jake marveled at her news. “Who took it?”
“Those shapeshifter brats. But don’t worry, Gladwin and I stole it back a little while ago and handed it over to the Queen’s chamberlain. We told the Elders, too. Those skunkies are in so much trouble! Did you have fun in the paintings?”
He gave her a sardonic look. “Not exactly.” Then he glanced around at the others. “Come on, everybody. We need to go talk to Red at once. We’ve got serious matters to discuss, and it’s safer if we all stick together.”
“Serious matters? Like what?” Archie asked in surprise.
“Like war,” Jake murmured, glancing at Nixie.
She met his gaze with a somber nod.
Dani and Archie exchanged a look of concern.
“My Gryphon will know what to do,” Jake assured them. “But first, where’s Isabelle? I’ll need her to translate Red’s advice.”
“She’s in the ballroom,” Archie replied, and they all hurried off to find her.
Since children were not allowed in through the ballroom doors, they ran around the palace and through the gardens, hoping to flag her down from the double doors along the back terrace.
When they arrived at the terrace, however, Isabelle was already there, sitting on a bench, with Maddox perched on the wide stone railing beside her.
Dani called out to her. “Izzy, look, Jake’s back! He’s all right! Nixie, too!”
“Oh, good.” She made no move to get up.
“Something’s going on, sis,” Archie advised her. “You’d better come along.”
“I’m busy,” she protested, nodding discreetly at Maddox.
“He can come, too,” Jake conceded with reluctance.
“You’re assuming that I’d want to?” the older boy replied, staring at him.
Jake sighed and lowered his head. The last time he and Maddox had seen each other, it had erupted into a fight. A fight Jake had started, with accusations against the other boy’s honor that he now knew were false.
“Look, I owe you an apology,” Jake forced out. “I thought you set me up, but I know now you had nothing to do with stealing the Queen’s flag. I should’ve realized that you, of all people, would never do something like that, no matter how
annoyed you were at me. So, yes, I’m sorry that I accused you. Happy now?”
“And?” Maddox prompted, folding his arms across his chest.
“Sorry for throwing dragon dung on you,” Jake mumbled.
The others glanced at him in surprise, but Maddox smiled wryly. “There. Was that so hard?”
“Are you coming with us or not?” he exclaimed. “Trust me, you’re going to want to hear this.”
More to the point, Jake already knew they had a fight ahead of them, and obviously, Maddox would be an excellent ally to have on their side.
“So? Spit it out.”
“Not here,” Jake said. “We’re going to see my Gryphon. He’ll know what to do. Isabelle, please come, even if he won’t. We need you to translate what Red says.”
“Very well.” She glanced questioningly at Maddox.
He met her gaze and shrugged. “As you wish. I’ve never seen a gryphon before, anyway. Why not.”
The older pair joined them, and they went.
PART IV
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Secret War Council
“This information is not to leave our circle,” Jake told the others a short while later as they sat around the edges of Red’s nest in the darkness.
It felt like a safe place there, atop the windy pillar of rock that the Gryphon had claimed for his aerie, with a ring of tall trees standing guard around them.
Being near Red made Jake feel calmer about all the terrible news he had learned. It also helped to know that the Gryphon would soon be back to his full strength—and his full plumage. The noble beast’s feathers were filling in nicely, albeit with a few more gold ones sprinkled in among the scarlet. Jake had no idea what the golden feathers meant, but they winked in the dim glow of the lantern Archie had picked up along the way.
By its flickering light, Jake looked around at his friends’ somber faces as they waited to hear what he had to say. “While Nixie and I were inside the paintings, I found out why the vampire came to Merlin Hall. The Dark Druids are preparing for war.”
The others drew in their breath and listened tensely as he filled them in on what he had overheard while inside the Vesuvius painting. He almost couldn’t bear to answer the question, though, when Archie asked what had set the Dark Druids off.